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China's domestic EV market has a hidden advantage: the Chinese power grid

• tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  The small number of incumbent ICE manufacturers probably helps as well.
  • lucubratory 3y ago
    This is the real answer. Many industries have a huge inertia from built-up skill in the labour force and industry R&D, and built capital. In all of these areas, China was far behind the West for cars. That was until EVs came along and completely eliminated the engine and exhaust management, which was by far the most complicated part of the car in terms of expertise. To make it even better, it all got replaced by electronics, which is something that China is great at and a lot of traditional car countries aren't great at. The combination meant that even though China didn't have a great industry around forming body panels to an effective precision, even though they didn't have the best engineers that understand suspension systems or ultra-reliable control systems, they could compete with the big car countries on something much closer to an equal footing. And when the Chinese get to compete on an equal footing in the modern era, they win more often than they don't.
• lucubratory 3y ago
  Not sure about that, it's certainly newer but the grids in America aren't in any way bad enough that they're affecting whether or not people buy EVs or manufacturers make them.
  • est 3y ago
    I mean the oil price is 50% more expensive in China, but in China the electricity is 50% cheaper than US. So if you live in China, driving an EV means 5%~10% of the cost of ICE cars.